Weapon of wounding question

[juliaromero]

Let's see if I'm missing something with the wounding enhancement for weapons. It seems a little too good for a two weapon fighter with wounding on both weapons. Our groups fighter just hit 16th level, has all the double weapon feats and boots of haste, and has two weapons of wounding. That gives him 8 attacks per round. The damage from his weapons becomes almost insignificant next to the con damage he deals. So, is there something I'm missing here or is this just a fast way to toast large living creatures? 600 Hp? Who cares, kill them with con damage fast. It just feels unbalanced the way it is.

 

[Orm]

The wounding ability is quite strong, no question. The more HD something has, the worse.
But each wounding weapon costs at least 18000+ gp so investing 36000+ gp should earn you something.
Beside of that, creatures immune to critical hits are immune to this CON damage and at higher levels there are lots of those creatures.
And first he has to hit. What´s his attack bonus? Something like 16(BAB)+5(STR)+1(magic)-2(TWF with light off hand weapon)=+20 for the first attack. Opponents of higher levels often have ACs above 30, that´s 50/50 to hit with the first attack and the third/fourth will only hit on a natural 20. So in one round he will deal 2-3 points CON damage. That´s 30 to 60 hp for a 30 HD creature. A 16th level wizard easily does the same with a fireball.
So it´s strong but not too overpowered, compared to some other combos. IMO.

Orm

 

[juliaromero]

Yeah but compare it to other +2 worth of enhancements ... what do you get usually, like +2d6 or so? Fight something with 25 HD and get two hits. That's 14 extra points of damage from most other bonuses, compared to 25 points of damage, -1 to fortitude saves, and being closer to death from con.

Also from the SRD:

A wounding weapon deals 1 point of Constitution damage from blood loss when it hits a creature.

So, if someone wanted to be really technical, they could argue that you only need to make a touch attack (that "hits" a creature") to do the con damage, and you don't need to even get through DR (though I would never allow that interpretation in my game).

 

[Orm]

Yeah but compare it to other +2 worth of enhancements ... what do you get usually, like +2d6 or so? Fight something with 25 HD and get two hits. That's 14 extra points of damage from most other bonuses, compared to 25 points of damage, -1 to fortitude saves, and being closer to death from con.

As I mentioned, it´s strong.
But it´s up to the DM to let them come up in the game. And the DM can adjust their power by appropriate encounters.

So, if someone wanted to be really technical, they could argue that you only need to make a touch attack (that "hits" a creature") to do the con damage, and you don't need to even get through DR (though I would never allow that interpretation in my game).

IIRC, you have to deal normal hp damage to deal CON damage as well. So no touch attack, and DR applies. Wounding daggers or other light weapons sometimes have a disadvantage.

 

[Mosep]

The PowerAttack and DR mechanics works in favor of taking the twohanded route. I don’t think its unreasonable that some mechanics works better with a two weapon fighter.

 

[Orm]

At least after investing a lot of resources: feats, two (magic) weapons instead of one,...

 

[isoChron]

The worst point about wounding (besides that it punishes tougher cretures more than weaklings) is that the DM has to recalculate the HP, FORT-saves, concentration checks all the time (aren't there some monsters that have CON-based abilities, too...). It was a real pain to keep the combat fluid. I would never hand out this type of weapon in my campaign. Just my exp. and opinion. :\

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

My experience, playing a character with a wounding weapon is that it's very effective, but not an obviously better choice than, say a holy weapon. [Most +2 enhancements are overpriced--Axiomatic and Anarchic only see occasional advantages in a lot of campaigns, and the burst enhancements are primarily good for people who are either insanely lucky or extremely crit focussed]

A holy weapon does its 2d6 damage which is maybe a little less than I typically get out of wounding (but it's hard to be sure). However, it also bypasses DR x/good which my wounding weapon doesn't. And it works on undead which my wounding weapon doesn't. (In fact, my character picked up a ghost touch, undead bane sword to use against undead since they're a lot of the high level encounters he faces and his main weapon might as well be +1 against them).

Another thing to consider is that sometimes straight up damage is better than con damage. Heal, heals all ability damage as well as up to 150 hp of damage. If you're counting on con damage to take down something big and then it gets a Heal spell, you're out of luck. On the other hand, if you do, say 180 points of damage instead of 145 and 5 points of con, the baddie still has 30 hit points of damage left after the Heal spell. (It doesn't come up often, but it's come up once for my character so far).

Overall, I'd rate Holy as a better enhancement for a one-weapon kind of character who has one really good weapon that he wields against all comers. It's also better for use on a ghost touch weapon since nine times out of ten, incorporeal things are undead. (And the tenth one is a freakin Eladrin from the Book of Exalted Deeds that'll cast Heal when you've finally beat it enough for it to notice).

For characters who use two weapons or switch between weapons, I think it's better to have Wounding on a weapon. You can have one weapon enhanced to be optimal against crittable foes and another optimized for undead/non-critable foes. If you're a two weapon fighter, you might want wounding on both weapons for the sheer viciousness of it, but you probably still want to enhance them somewhat differently so that you're prepared for all eventualities.

 

[Jdvn1]

Our Soulknife made his weapon Wounding -- it was strong but not overpowered.

My two cents.

 

[Liquidsabre]

Hmm, can wounding be put on a bow?